"It doesn't seem like matching silhouettes would be awesome, I know. But it is, in fact, totally awesome." - PENNY ARCADE

"Fantastic from top to bottom, SPiN is heartily recommended." - IGN

"This exceptional puzzle game shouldn't be missed." - SLIDE TO PLAY

DESCRIPTION:Train your fingers to be as fast as the eye in this game of silhouettes and shape recognition!

SPiN is simple, colorful and fun. "Rotate and match objects for a high score" - that sums it up in one sentence. Well, there's more, but you'll learn all about chain combos and unlockable trophies when playing the game.

Together with stylized visuals and the cheeriest soundtrack ever, SPiN is easy to pick up but infinitely challenging. We mean it - the game starts out casually, but keep playing and you'll discover the quickest game on the iPhone!

I'm not going to go all marketing-drone and babble about features and content, but what I do want to mention is that we did spend a heck of a lot of time working out the difficulty curve for this version.

As it's mentioned in the preview post, SPiN is an adaptation of a game that was made some time ago, but the adaptation work in fact meant re-writing much of the gameplay.

The old version had 10 stages with a difficulty multiplier, but all the gameplay, difficulty and controls were designed with only a 4-way controller in mind. The controls didn't feel right at all with the multi-touch screen, so we threw the old stuff out and pretty much started from square one.

First we re-built the controls... the old game allowed only X and Y rotations, but for SPiN this didn't feel intuitive. It was a bit unforeseen how changing an input method actually changes the entire expectation of how things must behave. Therefore we added Z-axis rotation as well. Using a lousy example, the old controls were similar to flying a satellite around the Earth - the new controls are like holding something in your hand.

But, since the controls were changed, the old level definitions didn't match the new gameplay... so we threw them out and started from square one as well.

As said, the old version had 10 stages with a multiplier loop that made things faster, but I was never really satisfied with that decision. Starting from scratch allowed us to put in 100 stages spread across 10 difficulty levels. They still are, in a way, 10 stages that get progressively difficult, but instead of just slapping a mathematic expression there, I wanted to hand-tune the level variables for the 100-stage table. The difficulty no longer goes up in a linear way: instead the difficulty difference between each level gets progressively smaller the further the player progresses. This is a more natural difficulty curve, since player skills generally improve a lot in the beginning and less as time goes on.

The 10 difficulty levels are hand-tuned, and if someone makes it through to the end, level 11 is the one that gets progressively difficult mathematically. For anyone to get there, that means first clearing the 100 stages. At level 11, SPiN is a recognition/reaction challenge that has a faster pace than any Warioware: the player has roughly half a second to first read and recognize a silhouette, then understand how that translates to the 3D object that is being rotated with touch gestures, and then to quickly flip the object to the correct orientation.

Because the gets progressively faster, it allows for players with a hardcore mentality to see how far they can push themselves. So far I'm up to stage 110-120 before it gets too fast for my old bones, but I also have the benefit of knowing all the objects in the game by heart...

I'd compare the difficulty scale of the game to Tetris, as both start out at a casual pace, but can be enjoyed at any skill level.

And heck, if we've underestimated everyone's ability, just let me know... the best part of App Store compared to handheld consoles is that the games can grow with the players.

So... was this boring, self-indulgent tripe, or something you guys care to read?

Looks interesting and suited for the Iphone but as you say you might drop the price a bit. Will not buy another app at full price just to get cheated by pricedrops the next day, pisses me off. Still can´t get over Apocalypse which changed price 2 times in its first 2 days and I lost 2 bucks on crap.

So when will you lower the price? Or can you promise not to lower the price? I can buy at what you are asking I just don´t want to get cheated the next day.

I was just wondering - in the video, the first two goals are to rotate the pink ostrich twice, and then a teddy bear five times.
Are those 2 + 5 = 7 of the 100 levels?

Or is one level to rotate the ostrich a certain amount of times, and another to rotate the teddy bear a certain amount of times, which make it 2 levels?
And if so, how much goal shapes are there in the ostrich and teddy bear levels?

Obviously in the second scenario there would be a lot more gameplay value and it would take longer to finish the game, which makes it a lot more attractive to purchase.

It's our first app in the store, and like many other developers, we have no clue what we're getting into. We've spent our own savings in developing our games, and we hope to survive in this profession with the money we make from the sales.

Even the current price of SPiN, in our opinion, is less than we consider its worth. However, because of the current situation in the App Store, we've compromised the price to $4.99.

We don't know how many sales to expect because we haven't done this before. Not many have, considering the App Store practically just opened up. But we do know how much money we need to make in order to keep developing our next game (Zen Bound) and the game after that.

If we lower our price, it means we do so because our sales expectations are not being met at the price we have chosen. In other words, if you see us lowering the price, you'll know that we've switched to plan B, and are trying hard to maintain our ability to develop games in the future.

I have to underline, we are doing this as our full-time profession, and our ability to pay our rent and bills comes directly from the everyone who buys our game.

Our goal is to make bigger and better games in the future. However, if the business in the App Store leaves us with less money from sales than we put into making the game, it means we either have to call it quits and find other jobs, look at other platfoms, or make smaller games.

This leaves you, and every other possible customer of ours, with the same choice: do you wish to support us at our price, or save 1-2 dollars now to get a cheaper game and risk every future game you might be looking forward to?

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